[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[CAREY SCHUG via cctalk]

compiled basics too longer to run and debug because of the compile time.

Anything I did was limited to floppy disk, or later even hard disk speed, the 
greater speed from compiling could not be noticed.

--Carey

> On 05/02/2024 9:51 PM CDT Just Kant via cctalk  wrote:
> 
>  
> BASICs available at bootup were nice, but really were only useful with 8 bit 
> micros. IBM ROM BASIC was hobbled until you ran BASICA from disk. And if you 
> had a floppy it only made sense to buy a cheap compiler (Quick Basic, Turbo 
> Basic, etc.). Whatever you were missing by not dropping 4-500$ for a full 
> product probably wasn't worth the expense.
> 
>  ROM BASICs outlived their usefulness very quickly. Compiled Basic was an 
> entrance into real world development. It wasn't a tool you could do 
> everything with. But how many programmers sitting at home were creating apps 
> that were even 64k in size. Compiled Basic was the schnitzel. There are also 
> several 32/64 bit versions available for free. Carry on.

[cctalk] Re: Diablo Model 40 Series - Disturbed head positioning

[Curious Marc via cctalk]

Yes the oscilloscope are your eyes and ears for electrons… 
Marc

> On May 1, 2024, at 11:44 PM, Dominique Carlier  wrote:
> 
> Hi Marc !
> 
> It should be so great if it was just the PSU, everything else is hyper 
> overkill in terms of complexity but on the multimeter all the voltages show 
> the correct values, including +15V and -15V (generated from the +24V and -24V 
> of the power supply).
> But is it possible that one of these currents, for example the stabalized +5V 
>  is 'parasitized' ? How can it be diagnosed? With an oscilloscope I suppose?
> 
> The interesting thing now is the lack of emergency retraction of the heads if 
> the power is cut during RUN mode. There is an unfuse +24V provided for this 
> purpose but it is present in the power supply. If that problem is common to 
> the others issues, this leads me to think that there is an issue at the 
> logical level, in this case the breakdown hypotheses are unfortunately 
> infinite (summing junction on SO board, servo positioner, SR board, sensors, 
> ...). If it's not common, it should be a dead capacitor concerning the 
> emergency retraction of the heads, and a dead amplifier transistor on the 
> heat sink board dedicated to the plus/minus (forward/reverse) servo 
> positioner, who knows ?
> 
> Dominique
> 
> 
>> On 2/05/2024 01:38, Curious Marc wrote:
>> Power supply problem?
>> Marc
>> 
 On Apr 30, 2024, at 8:58 AM, Dominique Carlier via cctalk 
  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello everyone
>>> 
>>> I need your help to identify an issue on my Diablo Model 40 Series. I don't 
>>> know where to look, it's so vast !
>>> 
>>> Here's the problem:
>>> When RUN is activated, the drive begins its spin up and simultaneously 
>>> deploys the heads (normal) but instead of stabilizing them, the Head 
>>> Positioner receives a burst of reverse/forward micro signals. The heads 
>>> "vibrate", this creates an audible frequency "BRR", and it 
>>> is infinite, the heads are never loaded and the drive never reaches READY.
>>> 
>>> At first I thought that perhaps the track zero sensor was defective or 
>>> something of the same order but when I disengage RUN mode, the drive 
>>> unloads the heads and they should be in a fixed position, here they 
>>> continue to reverse/forward but more slowly than in RUN mode.
>>> Because the heads continues to mess around even in unload mode, this a 
>>> priori excludes alignment problems.
>>> 
>>> Here is a video of that issue:
>>> 
>>> https://youtu.be/HzzxLnSdEOg
>>> 
>>> Other information, if I cut the power while the drive is in RUN mode, it 
>>> does not do an emergency retraction of the heads, related problem?
>>> I was hoping for a power supply problem but all the voltages and even on 
>>> the main board cage seem ok (with a multimeter).
>>> 
>>> If one of you had already encountered this problem of lack of head 
>>> stabilization and continuous reverse/forward on this type of drive?
>>> 
>>> Thanks !
>>> 
>>> Dominique
>>> 

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Just Kant via cctalk]

BASICs available at bootup were nice, but really were only useful with 8 bit 
micros. IBM ROM BASIC was hobbled until you ran BASICA from disk. And if you 
had a floppy it only made sense to buy a cheap compiler (Quick Basic, Turbo 
Basic, etc.). Whatever you were missing by not dropping 4-500$ for a full 
product probably wasn't worth the expense.

 ROM BASICs outlived their usefulness very quickly. Compiled Basic was an 
entrance into real world development. It wasn't a tool you could do everything 
with. But how many programmers sitting at home were creating apps that were 
even 64k in size. Compiled Basic was the schnitzel. There are also several 
32/64 bit versions available for free. Carry on.

[cctalk] Re: pipelines [was:BASIC and other languages]

[CAREY SCHUG via cctalk]

Can  you direct me to documenation for UNIX pipelines that includes even 10% as 
much as CURRENT mainframe PIPELINES?  Which is at least 10x what mainframe was 
when I lost access to it.

Multiplexing alone is an order of magnitude increase in the power of pipelines, 
not something which is only less than 15%.

--Carey

> On 05/02/2024 12:45 PM CDT r.stricklin via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>  
> > On May 1, 2024, at 11:03 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > I very much miss CMS PIPELINES which was ported to MVS, but afaik never 
> > beyond IBM mainframes.
> > 
> 
> CMS PIPELINES was a mainframe implementation of a “standard" UNIX facility 
> (with some small extensions, e.g. multiplexed pipelines). They are about 85% 
> congruent.
> 
> ok
> bear.

[cctalk] Re: IITRAN [was: BASIC

[CAREY SCHUG via cctalk]

Thanks, I was kind of thinking there was a 360 in the middle, but...

Now that you mention it, I remember the 360 being added to the basement 
computer center.  I think they moved the 78044 to the back and put the 360 
where it used to be, or maybe first installed the 360 in the back, then 
switched them.

With the 360, a 2501 card reader was installed in the public area, and students 
just loaded in their own decks, must have been to a spooler (was the spooler 
running in F1?  OR f2, and they were executed in F1?  I would NOT have known 
that detail).

The univac was installed in the new building east of the dorms.'

Now, were they all called IITRAN?  I'm kind of thinking with the last switch, 
they had a new name and the language changed a bit.


--Carey

> On 05/02/2024 9:26 AM CDT Chuck Guzis via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>  
> On 5/1/24 23:00, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote:
> > I recall IITRAN for the IBM 7044, and am i correct that there was an IITRAN 
> > for the Univac 1108, which was significantly different?
> 
> I believe that IITRAN was moved from the 7040 to a 360/40 for a few
> years, then to an Univac 1108.  All architectures very different from
> one another.  I believe that the S/360 ran DOS/360 with the IITRAN
> running in a foreground partition.  Ron Hochsprung, if he's still
> around, may recall more accurately.
> 
> --Chuck

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 2, 2024, at 8:45 PM, Paul Koning  wrote:
> 
> Yes, it sure is.  I was mistaken about it being the first issue.  Instead, 
> the RSA article appears in Vol. 1 No. 3 (4Q80).  Too bad the article itself 
> isn't included in the scanned material.

Ah, but it does show up elsewhere: 
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/VLSI/ClassicDesigns/RSA/RSA.L4Q80.pdf 


> 
>   paul
> 
>> On May 2, 2024, at 8:39 PM, Lee Courtney > > wrote:
>> 
>> Paul,
>> 
>> Is this the Lambda/VLSI Design magazine you refer to:
>> 
>> Lynn Conway's VLSI Archive: Main Links (umich.edu) 
>> 
>> 
>> ?
>> 
>> Thanks!
>> 
>> Lee
>> 
>> On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 1:00 PM Paul Koning > > wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> > On May 2, 2024, at 3:50 PM, Lee Courtney via cctalk > > > wrote:
>> > 
>> > The first "professional software" I wrote (almost) out of University in
>> > 1979 was a package to emulate the mainframe APL\Plus file primitives on a
>> > CP/M APL variant. Used to facilitate porting of mainframe APL applications
>> > to microcomputers.
>> > 
>> > I'm still an APL adherent since the late 1960s, but it was probably too
>> > heavy-weight, with obstacles noted elsewhere (character-set, radical
>> > programming paradigm), to be successful in the early days of
>> > microcomputing. Although the MCM-70 was an amazing feat of technology.
>> > 
>> > Too bad because the language itself lends itself to learning by anyone with
>> > an understanding of high school algebra.
>> 
>> The one professional application APL I heard of was in a talk by Ron Rivest, 
>> at DEC around 1982 or so.  He described a custom chip he had built, a bignum 
>> ALU (512 bits) to do RSA acceleration.  The chip included a chunk of 
>> microcode, and he mentioned that the microcode store layout was done by an 
>> APL program about 500 lines long.  That raised some eyebrows...
>> 
>> Unless I lost it I still have the article somewhere: it's the cover story on 
>> the inaugural issue of "Lambda" which later became "VLSI Design", a 
>> technical journal about chip design.
>> 
>> My own exposure to APL started around 1998, when I decoded to try to use it 
>> for writing cryptanalysis software.  That was for a course in cryptanalysis 
>> taught by Alex Biryukov at Technion and offered to remote students.  The 
>> particular exercise was solving an ADVFX cipher (see "The Code Breakers", 
>> the unabridged hardcover, not the useless paperback).  It worked too, and it 
>> took less than 100 lines.
>> 
>> paul
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Lee Courtney
>> +1-650-704-3934 cell
> 

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

Yes, it sure is.  I was mistaken about it being the first issue.  Instead, the 
RSA article appears in Vol. 1 No. 3 (4Q80).  Too bad the article itself isn't 
included in the scanned material.

paul

> On May 2, 2024, at 8:39 PM, Lee Courtney  wrote:
> 
> Paul,
> 
> Is this the Lambda/VLSI Design magazine you refer to:
> 
> Lynn Conway's VLSI Archive: Main Links (umich.edu) 
> 
> 
> ?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Lee
> 
> On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 1:00 PM Paul Koning  > wrote:
> 
> 
> > On May 2, 2024, at 3:50 PM, Lee Courtney via cctalk  > > wrote:
> > 
> > The first "professional software" I wrote (almost) out of University in
> > 1979 was a package to emulate the mainframe APL\Plus file primitives on a
> > CP/M APL variant. Used to facilitate porting of mainframe APL applications
> > to microcomputers.
> > 
> > I'm still an APL adherent since the late 1960s, but it was probably too
> > heavy-weight, with obstacles noted elsewhere (character-set, radical
> > programming paradigm), to be successful in the early days of
> > microcomputing. Although the MCM-70 was an amazing feat of technology.
> > 
> > Too bad because the language itself lends itself to learning by anyone with
> > an understanding of high school algebra.
> 
> The one professional application APL I heard of was in a talk by Ron Rivest, 
> at DEC around 1982 or so.  He described a custom chip he had built, a bignum 
> ALU (512 bits) to do RSA acceleration.  The chip included a chunk of 
> microcode, and he mentioned that the microcode store layout was done by an 
> APL program about 500 lines long.  That raised some eyebrows...
> 
> Unless I lost it I still have the article somewhere: it's the cover story on 
> the inaugural issue of "Lambda" which later became "VLSI Design", a technical 
> journal about chip design.
> 
> My own exposure to APL started around 1998, when I decoded to try to use it 
> for writing cryptanalysis software.  That was for a course in cryptanalysis 
> taught by Alex Biryukov at Technion and offered to remote students.  The 
> particular exercise was solving an ADVFX cipher (see "The Code Breakers", the 
> unabridged hardcover, not the useless paperback).  It worked too, and it took 
> less than 100 lines.
> 
> paul
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Lee Courtney
> +1-650-704-3934 cell

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Lee Courtney via cctalk]

Paul,

Is this the Lambda/VLSI Design magazine you refer to:

Lynn Conway's VLSI Archive: Main Links (umich.edu)


?

Thanks!

Lee

On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 1:00 PM Paul Koning  wrote:

>
>
> > On May 2, 2024, at 3:50 PM, Lee Courtney via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> > The first "professional software" I wrote (almost) out of University in
> > 1979 was a package to emulate the mainframe APL\Plus file primitives on a
> > CP/M APL variant. Used to facilitate porting of mainframe APL
> applications
> > to microcomputers.
> >
> > I'm still an APL adherent since the late 1960s, but it was probably too
> > heavy-weight, with obstacles noted elsewhere (character-set, radical
> > programming paradigm), to be successful in the early days of
> > microcomputing. Although the MCM-70 was an amazing feat of technology.
> >
> > Too bad because the language itself lends itself to learning by anyone
> with
> > an understanding of high school algebra.
>
> The one professional application APL I heard of was in a talk by Ron
> Rivest, at DEC around 1982 or so.  He described a custom chip he had built,
> a bignum ALU (512 bits) to do RSA acceleration.  The chip included a chunk
> of microcode, and he mentioned that the microcode store layout was done by
> an APL program about 500 lines long.  That raised some eyebrows...
>
> Unless I lost it I still have the article somewhere: it's the cover story
> on the inaugural issue of "Lambda" which later became "VLSI Design", a
> technical journal about chip design.
>
> My own exposure to APL started around 1998, when I decoded to try to use
> it for writing cryptanalysis software.  That was for a course in
> cryptanalysis taught by Alex Biryukov at Technion and offered to remote
> students.  The particular exercise was solving an ADVFX cipher (see "The
> Code Breakers", the unabridged hardcover, not the useless paperback).  It
> worked too, and it took less than 100 lines.
>
> paul
>
>
>

-- 
Lee Courtney
+1-650-704-3934 cell

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 5/2/24 13:59, Gavin Scott via cctalk wrote:
> There's also Geoff Graham's BASIC for the Pi Pico.
> 
> https://geoffg.net/picomite.html

Then there's the 8042 MCU-embedded BASIC, the BASIC stamp, etc.

I have a little MicroPy board here that's fun to play with.

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

Thinking back over the last couple of months, I realize that most of my
recent programming has been in Linux Bash scripts.

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Gavin Scott via cctalk]

There's also Geoff Graham's BASIC for the Pi Pico.

https://geoffg.net/picomite.html

On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 3:32 PM Paul Koning via cctalk
 wrote:
>
>
>
> > On May 2, 2024, at 4:23 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk 
> >  wrote:
> >
> > ...
> > I'm told Lua is the new Basic or Python is the new Basic, but the best 
> > thing for me about Basic on the old micros was being able to turn the 
> > computer on and type Basic into it immediately And to that end, I 
> > decided to re-target my C Basic it to a bare metal framework for the 
> > Raspberry Pi I'd been working on - boots to Basic in... well, it's not as 
> > quick as an Apple II or BBC Micro, but under 2 seconds. It's a bit faster 
> > on a Pi Zero as there's no USB to initialise...
>
> That's why I've been playing with FORTH on my Raspberry Pico microcontrollers 
> (Travis Bemann's "Zeptoforth" dialect, to be precise).  It's nice and 
> compact, and it boots in milliseconds.  Multicore, multitasking, lots of 
> library modules... nice.
>
> paul
>
>

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 2, 2024, at 4:23 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> ...
> I'm told Lua is the new Basic or Python is the new Basic, but the best thing 
> for me about Basic on the old micros was being able to turn the computer on 
> and type Basic into it immediately And to that end, I decided to 
> re-target my C Basic it to a bare metal framework for the Raspberry Pi I'd 
> been working on - boots to Basic in... well, it's not as quick as an Apple II 
> or BBC Micro, but under 2 seconds. It's a bit faster on a Pi Zero as there's 
> no USB to initialise... 

That's why I've been playing with FORTH on my Raspberry Pico microcontrollers 
(Travis Bemann's "Zeptoforth" dialect, to be precise).  It's nice and compact, 
and it boots in milliseconds.  Multicore, multitasking, lots of library 
modules... nice.

paul

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[ben via cctalk]

On 2024-05-02 4:55 a.m., Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
 wrote:


What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
APL, instead of BASIC?


To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.

I have been watching the APL world with interest since I discovered it
at university, and I still don't understand a word of it.

I've been watching Lisp for just 15 years or so and I find it unreadable too.

I think there are widely different levels of mental flexibility among
smart humans and one person's "this just requires a small effort but
you get so much in return!" is someone else's eternally impossible,
unclimbable mountain.

After some 40 years in computers now, I still like BASIC best, with
Fortran and Pascal very distant runners-up and everything else from C
to Python is basically somewhere between Minoan Linear A and Linear B
to me.

I think I lack the mental flexibility, and I think I'm better than
most of hoi polloi.

If the early machines had used something cryptic like APL or Forth I
reckon we'd never have had a generation of child programmers.


I have very poor memory, IF,REM,LET ect I can remember.
Line noise like TELCO err APL I can not make sense at all.
 USA(IBM) pushed APL , Europe wanted ALGOL. What users got was
STUPID ASCII and the useless accent marks. Without real IO
lots of languages died, and we got C and Pascal but only for
the US. That just left BASIC the standard as it just needed
A-Z0-9[]+-=><;"

BASIC would be still around in ALT UNIVERSE running off the
cloud.

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Gordon Henderson via cctalk]

On Wed, 1 May 2024, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote:


Let's hear your earliest introduction to BASIC.


The first computer I used ran BASIC - HP9830A. I was at school in 
Edinburgh in '77/'78. I was 15/16 at the time.


The "stupid computer" beat me at "NIM" then the teacher showed me the 
listing - "Oh, that looks easy" followed by "How hard can it be" ...


Ah well. Seems a long time ago now.

Dial-up + TTY-33 to the local computing center after that then very soon 
Apple II.


I'm still fond of BASIC (or Basic, whatever). Some 15 years back now I 
decided I'd write my own "ideal" Basic - line numbers optional, named 
procedures and functions with local variables - sort of in-line with the 
last "micro" Basic I used on the BBC Micro (c1981) but with full graphics 
commands, turtle graphics and more. That's all in C (Under Linux) and I 
even did some real work with it for some geolocation analysis and even 
sold a license to it to a company who were developing a Basic computer for 
educational use. (didn't quite make me a "Bill Gates" though!)


And just last year I wrote a fairly traditional "Tiny" Basic that lives in 
under 4KB of ROM on the 6502... Because why not.


I'm told Lua is the new Basic or Python is the new Basic, but the best 
thing for me about Basic on the old micros was being able to turn the 
computer on and type Basic into it immediately And to that end, I 
decided to re-target my C Basic it to a bare metal framework for the 
Raspberry Pi I'd been working on - boots to Basic in... well, it's not as 
quick as an Apple II or BBC Micro, but under 2 seconds. It's a bit faster 
on a Pi Zero as there's no USB to initialise... Still better than booting 
Linux (or MS Win, whatever), logging in, launching the "IDE", 


Cheers,

-Gordon

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[ben via cctalk]

On 2024-05-01 11:26 p.m., Ali via cctalk wrote:


Don't forget to bring a towel.

Sellam


The fact that we all probably got that reference is the amazing part.

-Ali


What no white mouse trap!

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 2, 2024, at 3:50 PM, Lee Courtney via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> The first "professional software" I wrote (almost) out of University in
> 1979 was a package to emulate the mainframe APL\Plus file primitives on a
> CP/M APL variant. Used to facilitate porting of mainframe APL applications
> to microcomputers.
> 
> I'm still an APL adherent since the late 1960s, but it was probably too
> heavy-weight, with obstacles noted elsewhere (character-set, radical
> programming paradigm), to be successful in the early days of
> microcomputing. Although the MCM-70 was an amazing feat of technology.
> 
> Too bad because the language itself lends itself to learning by anyone with
> an understanding of high school algebra.

The one professional application APL I heard of was in a talk by Ron Rivest, at 
DEC around 1982 or so.  He described a custom chip he had built, a bignum ALU 
(512 bits) to do RSA acceleration.  The chip included a chunk of microcode, and 
he mentioned that the microcode store layout was done by an APL program about 
500 lines long.  That raised some eyebrows...

Unless I lost it I still have the article somewhere: it's the cover story on 
the inaugural issue of "Lambda" which later became "VLSI Design", a technical 
journal about chip design.

My own exposure to APL started around 1998, when I decoded to try to use it for 
writing cryptanalysis software.  That was for a course in cryptanalysis taught 
by Alex Biryukov at Technion and offered to remote students.  The particular 
exercise was solving an ADVFX cipher (see "The Code Breakers", the unabridged 
hardcover, not the useless paperback).  It worked too, and it took less than 
100 lines.

paul

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Lee Courtney via cctalk]

The first "professional software" I wrote (almost) out of University in
1979 was a package to emulate the mainframe APL\Plus file primitives on a
CP/M APL variant. Used to facilitate porting of mainframe APL applications
to microcomputers.

I'm still an APL adherent since the late 1960s, but it was probably too
heavy-weight, with obstacles noted elsewhere (character-set, radical
programming paradigm), to be successful in the early days of
microcomputing. Although the MCM-70 was an amazing feat of technology.

Too bad because the language itself lends itself to learning by anyone with
an understanding of high school algebra. Iverson et al started scratching
the surface of introducing computing to elementary/high-school students
using APL with success in the 1970s. I myself learned it as my first
programming language by just reading a book and hacking while in 7th grade.
Further info:
THE USE OF APL IN TEACHING — Software Preservation Group

INTRODUCING APL TO TEACHERS — Software Preservation Group

APL in Exposition — Software Preservation Group


Lee Courtney

On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 3:56 AM Liam Proven via cctalk 
wrote:

> On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
>  wrote:
> >
> > What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
> > APL, instead of BASIC?
>
> To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
> happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
> result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.
>
> I have been watching the APL world with interest since I discovered it
> at university, and I still don't understand a word of it.
>
> I've been watching Lisp for just 15 years or so and I find it unreadable
> too.
>
> I think there are widely different levels of mental flexibility among
> smart humans and one person's "this just requires a small effort but
> you get so much in return!" is someone else's eternally impossible,
> unclimbable mountain.
>
> After some 40 years in computers now, I still like BASIC best, with
> Fortran and Pascal very distant runners-up and everything else from C
> to Python is basically somewhere between Minoan Linear A and Linear B
> to me.
>
> I think I lack the mental flexibility, and I think I'm better than
> most of hoi polloi.
>
> If the early machines had used something cryptic like APL or Forth I
> reckon we'd never have had a generation of child programmers.
>
> --
> Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
> Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
> IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884
> Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
>


-- 
Lee Courtney
+1-650-704-3934 cell

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[John Herron via cctalk]

Less interesting answer but being multiples of any cables you're relying
on. If presenting, multiple HDMI/output cables (I've seen HDMI cables not
work in specific setups and another cable would for unknown reasons).

Display cards or tags describing what you have on the table and what is
interesting are always a plus.

If you have stuff for sale, things to tag that area or equipment with. I've
been confused at some shows that are both presenting and selling on how to
identify what the seller has for sale.

Then I agree with all the other things folks mentioned for additional
power/protection and any tools you might want if you need to troubleshoot a
system that gets shy after a day or two of people looking at it or touching
it.

On Wed, May 1, 2024, 9:03 PM Brad H via cctalk 
wrote:

>
> Like, how do you prepare for these things?  What things that you didn't
> think of going into your first show do you wish you had?
>
>
>
> I have a pretty eclectic collection, and some really rare stuff
>

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 2, 2024, at 2:30 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Microsoft loves to take languages developed by others and transmogrify them 
> into the "Microsoft Universe".
> 
> Quick Basic, Visual Java, Visual Basic, Visual C# (barely resembles C) and 
> the worst offender of all Visual C++ .NET.
> 
> Your post reminded me that Postscript is an actual programming language as 
> well.

It sure is.  My favorite fractal curve, the "Tree of Pythagoras" has been my 
sample graphics exercise for any number of systems with graphics I/O.  The 
PostScript version I have is only a few dozen lines long, a simple recursive 
program.  A trickier version is my original one, in FORTRAN II (no recursion).

paul

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Mike Katz via cctalk]

Microsoft loves to take languages developed by others and transmogrify 
them into the "Microsoft Universe".


Quick Basic, Visual Java, Visual Basic, Visual C# (barely resembles C) 
and the worst offender of all Visual C++ .NET.


Your post reminded me that Postscript is an actual programming language 
as well.




On 5/2/2024 11:24 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

I'll add a postscript with my reaction upon seeing my first Microsoft
Visual BASIC program code:

"What the hell is this?  It's not BASIC!"

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: BASIC and other languraes

[r.stricklin via cctalk]

> On May 1, 2024, at 11:03 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> I very much miss CMS PIPELINES which was ported to MVS, but afaik never 
> beyond IBM mainframes.
> 

CMS PIPELINES was a mainframe implementation of a “standard" UNIX facility 
(with some small extensions, e.g. multiplexed pipelines). They are about 85% 
congruent.

ok
bear.

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[Mike Katz via cctalk]

I had a similar experience at VCF Midwest where the line voltage was as 
low as 90 VAC.  My area was without power for about 2 hours during setup.




On 5/2/2024 11:01 AM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
I learned at VCF East this year that I should have brought an UPS to 
make sure that my vintage equipment had good, clean AC power.  My 
PDP11 kept on resetting during the show.

Doug

On 5/1/2024 9:53 PM, Brad H via cctalk wrote:

Just reaching out to anyone who has exhibited at a vintage computing
festival before.  After years of only being able to watch others 
attend the
ones that happen in the US, we are finally getting one in BC here.  
Super
excited.  I was invited both to speak and to exhibit, and they even 
got me

two tables which is awesome.


Like, how do you prepare for these things?  What things that you didn't
think of going into your first show do you wish you had?


I have a pretty eclectic collection, and some really rare stuff (like my
Mark-8s) that I'd love to bring but am hesitant about due to the 
risks of

transportation damage and theft (from the car mostly, not the convention
itself).  Just trying to decide what to bring and how focused to be 
in terms

of theme.


Brad

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

I agree on the UPS!  Power can be inconsistent at shows

On Thu, May 2, 2024, 12:02 PM Douglas Taylor via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I learned at VCF East this year that I should have brought an UPS to
> make sure that my vintage equipment had good, clean AC power.  My PDP11
> kept on resetting during the show.
> Doug
>
> On 5/1/2024 9:53 PM, Brad H via cctalk wrote:
> > Just reaching out to anyone who has exhibited at a vintage computing
> > festival before.  After years of only being able to watch others attend
> the
> > ones that happen in the US, we are finally getting one in BC here.  Super
> > excited.  I was invited both to speak and to exhibit, and they even got
> me
> > two tables which is awesome.
> >
> >
> >
> > Like, how do you prepare for these things?  What things that you didn't
> > think of going into your first show do you wish you had?
> >
> >
> >
> > I have a pretty eclectic collection, and some really rare stuff (like my
> > Mark-8s) that I'd love to bring but am hesitant about due to the risks of
> > transportation damage and theft (from the car mostly, not the convention
> > itself).  Just trying to decide what to bring and how focused to be in
> terms
> > of theme.
> >
> >
> >
> > Brad
> >
>
>

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

I'll add a postscript with my reaction upon seeing my first Microsoft
Visual BASIC program code:

"What the hell is this?  It's not BASIC!"

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[Douglas Taylor via cctalk]

I learned at VCF East this year that I should have brought an UPS to 
make sure that my vintage equipment had good, clean AC power.  My PDP11 
kept on resetting during the show.

Doug

On 5/1/2024 9:53 PM, Brad H via cctalk wrote:

Just reaching out to anyone who has exhibited at a vintage computing
festival before.  After years of only being able to watch others attend the
ones that happen in the US, we are finally getting one in BC here.  Super
excited.  I was invited both to speak and to exhibit, and they even got me
two tables which is awesome.

  


Like, how do you prepare for these things?  What things that you didn't
think of going into your first show do you wish you had?

  


I have a pretty eclectic collection, and some really rare stuff (like my
Mark-8s) that I'd love to bring but am hesitant about due to the risks of
transportation damage and theft (from the car mostly, not the convention
itself).  Just trying to decide what to bring and how focused to be in terms
of theme.

  


Brad

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Norman Jaffe via cctalk]

I was lucky enough to have worked initially in Focal and FORTRAN at UW 
(Seattle) and moved on to PL/I, Pascal and APL at SFU (Burnaby, B.C.) while 
being exposed to Algol, BASIC, C, GPSS, Smalltalk, Simula, SNOBOL4, XPL and 
many other 'esoteric' languages. 
Of course, various Assemblers were in the 'mix' - 6800/6809, 8080, Z80, IBM 
360/370, IBM 1800, M68K... it's helped me adapt to whatever environment that I 
wound up working in. 

From: "Johan Helsingius via cctalk"  
To: "cctalk"  
Cc: "Johan Helsingius"  
Sent: Thursday, May 2, 2024 8:03:38 AM 
Subject: [cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC 

On 02/05/2024 01:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: 
> What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had 
> APL, instead of BASIC? 

I don't know, but if you had asked "What would our world be like if the 
first home computers were to have had SmallTalk or even ALGOL instead of 
BASIC?" I would have said "much better". 

I started out with FORTRAN and 6800 assembler, but my first real 
programming job was in BASIC. I am fortunate in that they thought 
me Pascal in university, and I then got exposed to a bunch of other 
real high level languages - if I hadn't, and had continued with 
BASIC, I would probably have ended up as a pretty crap programmer. 

Julf 

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 5/2/24 05:55, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
 wrote:

What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
APL, instead of BASIC?

To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.


Well, I have my doubts.  I did run ONE program in BASIC on 
my home Z-80 system, that was a VERY crude simulation of an 
electric car.  I had an S-100 Z-80 system from about 1976 
with paper tape. I then got a floppy drive, and later a 
Memorex 10 MB Winchester drive.  I did a LOT of programming 
in assembly language but also did larger programs like cross 
assemblers in Pascal.


Yes, I know a lot of people programmed in BASIC, but I 
didn't find it very good.


Jon

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 5/1/24 18:43, Norman Jaffe via cctalk wrote:

APL is very much alive - it was invented in the '60s.
Lisp is slightly older and it, as well, is still in active use - and it's older 
than FORTRAN, which was the inspiration for BASIC.


Lisp is VERY VERY much alive, but rarely seen.  The emacs 
editor on unix-related systems, (and several other editors 
on Linux hide emacs from you, but it is the editing engine 
down underneath.)  AI geeks use Lisp for a variety of things.


Jon

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Johan Helsingius via cctalk]

On 02/05/2024 01:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:

What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
APL, instead of BASIC?


I don't know, but if you had asked "What would our world be like if the
first home computers were to have had SmallTalk or even ALGOL instead of
BASIC?" I would have said "much better".

I started out with FORTRAN and 6800 assembler, but my first real
programming job was in BASIC. I am fortunate in that they thought
me Pascal in university, and I then got exposed to a bunch of other
real high level languages - if I hadn't, and had continued with
BASIC, I would probably have ended up as a pretty crap programmer.

Julf

[cctalk] Re: MS-DOS source code

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Thu, May 2, 2024, 7:27 AM geneb via cctalk  wrote:

> On Thu, 2 May 2024, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote:
>
> > Some may find this interesting.  Microsoft has released the source for
> MS-DOS versions 1.25, 2, and 4.
> >
> > https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
> >
>
> I think the most interesting thing about this is that they published it
> under an actual open source license (MIT) and not that nonsense that was
> used when they released 1.25 and 2.0 through the CHM years ago.
>


Yes. I'd thought about trying to reconstruct the source to the Rainbow
version(s) of DOS, but the license soured me on the idea.

Warner

g.
>
>
> --
> Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
> http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
> http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
> Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.
>
> ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
> A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
> http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
>

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk]

Gavin Scott via cctalk wrote:

BASIC was always a popular language in the Hewlett-Packard world. From
the HP 2000 timesharing BASIC that was popular in educational settings
similar to the original DTSS, To BASIC/3000 on the HP 3000 which was a
first-class language with both interpreter and compiler (producing
very fast code), to the HP 250/260 which used BASIC as their primary
development language, Rocky Mountain BASIC in the technical world, the
Series 80 microcomputers, HP Business Basic again on the 3000 which
was probably largest and most complex language system ever created for
the Classic 16-bit 3000 systems and which was intended to be both a
migration path for 250/260 applications to MPE and to be a new
standard Basic across multiple HP platforms.


I first got acquainted with computers in 1978-79 while in 8th grade, 
precisely on an HP3000 with BASIC. I was hooked.


Carlos.

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 5/2/24 07:02, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> 

> My guess is that the languages you use routinely are the ones that work best, 
> and which languages those are depends on where you work and on what projects. 
>  For example, I don't *like* C (I call it a "feebly typed language") and C++ 
> not either, but my job uses these two plus Python.
> 
> Now Python is actually my favorite (though recently I've done a bunch of work 
> in FORTH).  I like to mention that, in 50 years or so, I have only 
> encountered two programming languages where I went from "no knowledge" to 
> "wrote and debugged a substantial program" in only one week -- Pascal (in 
> graduate school) and Python (one job ago).

Reminds me of the brief trend for so-called "Natural Language"
programming in the  70s.  NLP for short.

"Take the 6rh item on the list and print it"  sort of stuff. Apparently,
it has resurfaced in the AI community.  Problem is that people don't
think like computers, even AI-equipped ones.

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 5/1/24 23:00, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote:
> I recall IITRAN for the IBM 7044, and am i correct that there was an IITRAN 
> for the Univac 1108, which was significantly different?

I believe that IITRAN was moved from the 7040 to a 360/40 for a few
years, then to an Univac 1108.  All architectures very different from
one another.  I believe that the S/360 ran DOS/360 with the IITRAN
running in a foreground partition.  Ron Hochsprung, if he's still
around, may recall more accurately.

--Chuck

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 1, 2024, at 6:44 PM, Wayne S via cctalk  wrote:
> 
> IMHO, “C” nomenclature really screwed up the equality vs assignment 
> statements.  The == made it difficult to understand especially if you came 
> from a language that didn’t have it. Basically all languages before “C”.

Well, sort of.  Some languages confused the two by using the same token -- 
BASIC is a notorious example.  ALGOL, FORTRAN, C, APL, POP-2 all solve the 
problem by using two different tokens; the only question is which of the two 
functions is marked by the "=" token.  In ALGOL , APL, and I think POP-2 it's 
equality,  in FORTRAN and C it's assignment.  Either works but you have to 
remember which it is; if you use languages of each kind then you may get 
confused at times.  :-(

paul

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 2, 2024, at 6:55 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
>  wrote:
>> 
>> What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
>> APL, instead of BASIC?
> 
> To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
> happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
> result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.
> 
> I have been watching the APL world with interest since I discovered it
> at university, and I still don't understand a word of it.
> 
> I've been watching Lisp for just 15 years or so and I find it unreadable too.
> 
> I think there are widely different levels of mental flexibility among
> smart humans and one person's "this just requires a small effort but
> you get so much in return!" is someone else's eternally impossible,
> unclimbable mountain.

That sounds right to me.

> After some 40 years in computers now, I still like BASIC best, with
> Fortran and Pascal very distant runners-up and everything else from C
> to Python is basically somewhere between Minoan Linear A and Linear B
> to me.

Well, Linear B isn't that hard, it's just Greek.  :-)

My guess is that the languages you use routinely are the ones that work best, 
and which languages those are depends on where you work and on what projects.  
For example, I don't *like* C (I call it a "feebly typed language") and C++ not 
either, but my job uses these two plus Python.

Now Python is actually my favorite (though recently I've done a bunch of work 
in FORTH).  I like to mention that, in 50 years or so, I have only encountered 
two programming languages where I went from "no knowledge" to "wrote and 
debugged a substantial program" in only one week -- Pascal (in graduate school) 
and Python (one job ago).

paul

[cctalk] Re: MS-DOS source code

[Michael Kerpan via cctalk]

It's historically interesting, plus it might help the FreeDOS folks plug
some compatibility holes since they can now legally look at the old code to
see how it does things.

Mike

On Thu, May 2, 2024, 9:53 AM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 5/2/2024 9:27 AM, geneb via cctalk wrote:
> > On Thu, 2 May 2024, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote:
> >
> >> Some may find this interesting.  Microsoft has released the source for
> >> MS-DOS versions 1.25, 2, and 4.
> >>
> >> https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
> >>
> >
> > I think the most interesting thing about this is that they published it
> > under an actual open source license (MIT) and not that nonsense that was
> > used when they released 1.25 and 2.0 through the CHM years ago.
> >
>
> All kind of meaningless as we have had an Open Source DOS equivalent
> for 3 decades already.
>
> bill
>
>

[cctalk] Re: MS-DOS source code

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

On 5/2/2024 9:27 AM, geneb via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, 2 May 2024, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote:

Some may find this interesting.  Microsoft has released the source for 
MS-DOS versions 1.25, 2, and 4.


https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS



I think the most interesting thing about this is that they published it 
under an actual open source license (MIT) and not that nonsense that was 
used when they released 1.25 and 2.0 through the CHM years ago.




All kind of meaningless as we have had an Open Source DOS equivalent
for 3 decades already.

bill

[cctalk] Re: MS-DOS source code

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 2 May 2024, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote:


Some may find this interesting.  Microsoft has released the source for MS-DOS 
versions 1.25, 2, and 4.

https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS



I think the most interesting thing about this is that they published it 
under an actual open source license (MIT) and not that nonsense that was 
used when they released 1.25 and 2.0 through the CHM years ago.


g.


--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 1, 2024, at 6:26 PM, Mike Katz via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> The Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC)
> 
> Developed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. 
>  This ran on the Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS) which was an early time 
> sharing system running on Honeywell and GE Main Frames with Datanet systems 
> running the terminal interfaces.
> 
> This system was intended to be an online code/run/debug cycle system rather 
> than a batch processing system like most Cobol and Fortran compilers were.
> 
> BASIC was actually their third language attempt to simplify the syntax of 
> languages like Fortran and Algol.
> 
> There are literally 100's of dialects of BASIC, both as compilers (as was the 
> original) and interpreters and even pseudo compilers.
> 
> Like many of us older members of this thread, some form of BASIC was our 
> "computer milk language" (our first computer language).
> 
> Some early microcomputers even wrote their operating systems in some form of 
> BASIC.
> 
> I learned basic in September of 1972 on a 4K PDP-8/L running EduSystem 10 
> Basic with time also spent at the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth (as 
> a 12 year old) running Dartmouth Basic.
> 
> Let's hear your earliest introduction to BASIC.

BASIC was my fourth language, after ALGOL-60, FORTRAN-II, and Philips PR8000 
assembler.  The first version I met was BASIC-PLUS, on RSTS-11.  That's a 
compiler (to threaded code, like P-code, not to machine code).  Soon after that 
I worked on RT-11 BASIC, which is an interpreter, and modified it to be a lab 
machine control system with interrupts and analog and digital I/O.

Someone commented on "what if the first PCs had run APL".  Shortly after 
reading the famous "Tablet" paper (Stephen Wolfram and his students at U of 
Illinois) I played a bit with that notion: a tablet computer supporting APL so 
you could program quickly because it requires so few characters per unit of 
work.  The crucial miss in that concept is that PCs are not sold (primarily) to 
programmers but to application users, and for that an APL-focused machine is no 
advantage.

paul

[cctalk] MS-DOS source code

[Will Cooke via cctalk]

Some may find this interesting.  Microsoft has released the source for MS-DOS 
versions 1.25, 2, and 4.

https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS

Will


Grownups never understand anything by themselves and it is tiresome for 
children to be always and forever explaining things to them,

Antoine de Saint-Exupery in The Little Prince

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Murray McCullough via cctalk]

I’m not certain what constitutes the original foundations of
BASIC(Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) but to my knowledge
it began with J. G. Kemeny and T. E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1964.
Apple BASIC and GWBASIC were well established when I began experimenting
with them in early 1980’s. By mid-80’s I was running both on a PC and
Coleco ADAM. I wrote a program using GWBASIC for cataloging my books and
magazines.

Happy computing,

Murray 

On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 6:56 AM Liam Proven via cctalk 
wrote:

> On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
>  wrote:
> >
> > What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
> > APL, instead of BASIC?
>
> To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
> happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
> result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.
>
> I have been watching the APL world with interest since I discovered it
> at university, and I still don't understand a word of it.
>
> I've been watching Lisp for just 15 years or so and I find it unreadable
> too.
>
> I think there are widely different levels of mental flexibility among
> smart humans and one person's "this just requires a small effort but
> you get so much in return!" is someone else's eternally impossible,
> unclimbable mountain.
>
> After some 40 years in computers now, I still like BASIC best, with
> Fortran and Pascal very distant runners-up and everything else from C
> to Python is basically somewhere between Minoan Linear A and Linear B
> to me.
>
> I think I lack the mental flexibility, and I think I'm better than
> most of hoi polloi.
>
> If the early machines had used something cryptic like APL or Forth I
> reckon we'd never have had a generation of child programmers.
>
> --
> Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
> Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
> IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884
> Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
>

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[Bill Degnan via cctalk]

A lot of people regret it later because they dont think they'll need it
when packing but I always bring a bathing suit just in case.  The vcf
exhibitor pool is a nice way to relax after a long day of showing.

On Thu, May 2, 2024, 1:13 AM Sellam Abraham via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On Wed, May 1, 2024, 7:48 PM Jim Brain via cctalk 
> wrote:
>
> >
> > My paper, pens, pencils, post it, duct tape, batteries, cash, blank
> > disks, memory cards, blank CDs, blank DVDs, small ethernet cable, small
> > USB cables (the rollup kind) are all in my computer bag, so they go
> > everywhere, as well as earphones, stereo splitter, a few checks, travel
> > power supply for my main laptop, extra travel mouse, USB pen drives.
> >
>
> Don't forget to bring a towel.
>
> Sellam
>

[cctalk] Re: APL (Was: BASIC

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
 wrote:
>
> What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
> APL, instead of BASIC?

To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.

I have been watching the APL world with interest since I discovered it
at university, and I still don't understand a word of it.

I've been watching Lisp for just 15 years or so and I find it unreadable too.

I think there are widely different levels of mental flexibility among
smart humans and one person's "this just requires a small effort but
you get so much in return!" is someone else's eternally impossible,
unclimbable mountain.

After some 40 years in computers now, I still like BASIC best, with
Fortran and Pascal very distant runners-up and everything else from C
to Python is basically somewhere between Minoan Linear A and Linear B
to me.

I think I lack the mental flexibility, and I think I'm better than
most of hoi polloi.

If the early machines had used something cryptic like APL or Forth I
reckon we'd never have had a generation of child programmers.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven
IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884
Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Adrian Godwin via cctalk]

I learnt to program at uni on prompt-48, an 8048 development system.
Hand-coded assembly, entered in hex and saved to EPROM. Later I moved to
z80 with an assembler hosted on a pdp 11/34. Later still I had to do a
customer project specified to be written in BASIC on an apple II (no square
brackets on this phone keyboard!). I learned much respect for people who
had to code in that crummy inflexible language :). Briefly learned some
pascal then with much relief discovered C. Not really found anything better
for the things I like to work on.

On Thu, 2 May 2024, 07:08 CAREY SCHUG via cctalk, 
wrote:

> I recall IITRAN for the IBM 7044, and am i correct that there was an
> IITRAN for the Univac 1108, which was significantly different?
>
> --Carey
>
> > On 05/01/2024 6:37 PM CDT Sellam Abraham via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 1, 2024 at 4:36 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > To be sure, BASIC was hardly unique in terms of the 1960s interactive
> > > programming languages.  We had JOSS, PILOT, IITRAN and a host of
> others,
> > > based on FORTRAN-ish syntax. not to forget APL, which was a thing
> apart.
> > >
> > > --Chuck
> > >
> >
> > And where are all those other languages today?
> >
> > I rest my case.
> >
> > ;)
> >
> > Sellam
>

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[Harald Arnesen via cctalk]

Gavin Scott via cctalk [02/05/2024 05.44]:


BASIC was always a popular language in the Hewlett-Packard world. From
the HP 2000 timesharing BASIC that was popular in educational settings
similar to the original DTSS, To BASIC/3000 on the HP 3000 which was a
first-class language with both interpreter and compiler (producing
very fast code), to the HP 250/260 which used BASIC as their primary
development language, Rocky Mountain BASIC in the technical world, the
Series 80 microcomputers, HP Business Basic again on the 3000 which
was probably largest and most complex language system ever created for
the Classic 16-bit 3000 systems and which was intended to be both a
migration path for 250/260 applications to MPE and to be a new
standard Basic across multiple HP platforms.


I learned programming in BASIC/3000 in the early 80s. The biggest 
problem with that language was that you could only have short variable 
names (1 letter + one digit, if I remember right).


I and two other students wrote kind of an inventory management system 
for a Norwegian company as a project in class. Oh, the fun of 
remembering what the variable names were in a program of some thousand 
lines...


I actually preferred the BASIC on my Commodore 64, especially when I got 
the Simons' BASIC cartridge.

--
Hilsen Harald

[cctalk] Re: What to take to a vintage computer show

[CAREY SCHUG via cctalk]

And a long scarf?

--Carey

> On 05/02/2024 12:26 AM CDT Ali via cctalk  wrote:
> 
>  
> >
> > Don't forget to bring a towel.
> >
> > Sellam
> 
> The fact that we all probably got that reference is the amazing part.
> 
> -Ali

[cctalk] Re: Diablo Model 40 Series - Disturbed head positioning

[Dominique Carlier via cctalk]

Hi Marc !

It should be so great if it was just the PSU, everything else is hyper 
overkill in terms of complexity but on the multimeter all the voltages 
show the correct values, including +15V and -15V (generated from the 
+24V and -24V of the power supply).
But is it possible that one of these currents, for example the 
stabalized +5V  is 'parasitized' ? How can it be diagnosed? With an 
oscilloscope I suppose?


The interesting thing now is the lack of emergency retraction of the 
heads if the power is cut during RUN mode. There is an unfuse +24V 
provided for this purpose but it is present in the power supply. If that 
problem is common to the others issues, this leads me to think that 
there is an issue at the logical level, in this case the breakdown 
hypotheses are unfortunately infinite (summing junction on SO board, 
servo positioner, SR board, sensors, ...). If it's not common, it should 
be a dead capacitor concerning the emergency retraction of the heads, 
and a dead amplifier transistor on the heat sink board dedicated to the 
plus/minus (forward/reverse) servo positioner, who knows ?


Dominique


On 2/05/2024 01:38, Curious Marc wrote:

Power supply problem?
Marc


On Apr 30, 2024, at 8:58 AM, Dominique Carlier via cctalk 
 wrote:

Hello everyone

I need your help to identify an issue on my Diablo Model 40 Series. I don't 
know where to look, it's so vast !

Here's the problem:
When RUN is activated, the drive begins its spin up and simultaneously deploys the heads (normal) 
but instead of stabilizing them, the Head Positioner receives a burst of reverse/forward micro 
signals. The heads "vibrate", this creates an audible frequency 
"BRR", and it is infinite, the heads are never loaded and the drive never 
reaches READY.

At first I thought that perhaps the track zero sensor was defective or 
something of the same order but when I disengage RUN mode, the drive unloads 
the heads and they should be in a fixed position, here they continue to 
reverse/forward but more slowly than in RUN mode.
Because the heads continues to mess around even in unload mode, this a priori 
excludes alignment problems.

Here is a video of that issue:

https://youtu.be/HzzxLnSdEOg

Other information, if I cut the power while the drive is in RUN mode, it does 
not do an emergency retraction of the heads, related problem?
I was hoping for a power supply problem but all the voltages and even on the 
main board cage seem ok (with a multimeter).

If one of you had already encountered this problem of lack of head 
stabilization and continuous reverse/forward on this type of drive?

Thanks !

Dominique

[cctalk] Re: BASIC and other languraes

[CAREY SCHUG via cctalk]

I very much miss CMS PIPELINES which was ported to MVS, but afaik never beyond 
IBM mainframes.

[cctalk] Re: BASIC

[CAREY SCHUG via cctalk]

I recall IITRAN for the IBM 7044, and am i correct that there was an IITRAN for 
the Univac 1108, which was significantly different?

--Carey

> On 05/01/2024 6:37 PM CDT Sellam Abraham via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
>  
> On Wed, May 1, 2024 at 4:36 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
> wrote:
> 
> > To be sure, BASIC was hardly unique in terms of the 1960s interactive
> > programming languages.  We had JOSS, PILOT, IITRAN and a host of others,
> > based on FORTRAN-ish syntax. not to forget APL, which was a thing apart.
> >
> > --Chuck
> >
> 
> And where are all those other languages today?
> 
> I rest my case.
> 
> ;)
> 
> Sellam